Finishing the stole design

As part of our online communication, we agreed that the bottom of the stole should be pointed, not squared.

However, as it was almost finished, I kept looking at that big nautilus shell. And thinking it wasn’t right. It was a lump in the visual flow of the piece. I asked the minister “ how about something like this?” (Below)

(Above) Let’s anchor the burning bush with roots embedded in the stones and bricks. I’m so glad she liked it!

I quickly found some tree root images (Above) and painstakingly photoshopped them into the brick (Below). Much, much better!

Some of you readers may be thinking “isn’t there a back section?” Well, yes, of course, but …all the front sections need to fit together visually. The back is separate enough that it only needs to connect to the piece. So I worked on that separately (Below). The connecting edges will need the same twisted tree roots, but the rest will have a stone pattern.

One of the requested elements (spiral, erosion & decay, seeds & stones, and a burning bush) was seeds. When I found this image of a worn-away elm seed, I decided to use it in the center of the back.

…and how about some sprouting seeds? (Below)

Sure, put it all together for one very confused image.(Below)

OK, first - the center of that elm seed looks like something from a horror movie. Powerful, but just too creepy. So I added a pattern from another seed in the middle (Below)..

Then the stones. In one of our first emails, the minister had mentioned Oaxaca, a town in Mexico. I googled Oaxaca walls/stones/etc and found some great stone walls that were naturally BLUE! When I showed them to her, she actually recognized one of them! So that one (minus the graffiti which translates as ‘RELIGION IS THE OPIATE OF THE PEOPLE’) became the background for the back section.

After many, many more revisions, this (Below) is the design that we used. The sprouting seeds have been carefully woven into the twisted roots. Spiraling ferns and seeds (added at 50% and 75% opacity) float over the stones without swamping them. This (Below) is the finished back:

And this (Below) is the finished front:

It’s out to get printed, with a rush shipping (on the extremely slim possibility of a printing problem, I want to know ASAP). With any luck at all, I’ll have the printed cloth to show you next week! As always, contact me at dianesavona@aol.com